thy immune system, and a real difference in your cat. purina one improved with smartblend. discover what one can do. >> this week on the journal, editorial report. is the new g.o.p. agenda a campaign gimmick or a guide to governing. and with obama care kicking in, the president is trying to sell it to the american people. will the topic prove tough for the democrats this november and a boost from the left as al gore's movie director takes on the teacher unions. will d.c. chancellor michelle reed be their latest victim? welcome to the journal, editorial report, i'm paul

gigot. house republicans unveiled their so-called pledge to america this week, calling it a governing agenda. they plan to pursue if they reagenda control of congress in november. the pledge includes proposals to permanently extend all the bush era tax cuts, including those for high earners, and give small business owners a 20% tax deduction on their income. canceled all unspent stimulus funds and roll back spending to pre-stimulus and pre-bailout levels and repeal obama care. replace it with proposals that include limits on malpractice lawsuits among other things. the pledge is widely seen as an effort to do what the republicans did when they won the house in 1994, with a contract with america. so, will it work? joining the panel this week, wall street columnist dan henninger, john fund and washington columnist kim strassel. some conservatives are out there saying this is weak,

they wanted more, are they right? >> well, paul, i'd say they're right, but they have the wrong election. [laughter] >> this is a document for the election of 2010, the congressional election, what they're talking about is the big enchilada the election in 2012. what congress has done and republicans are trying to show that they've got religion and i think this document does that, especially the item you mentioned about pushing spending back to below 2008 spending levels, that would be a big deal. if you want big ideas and a big agenda, you're going to have to wait for the presidential candidates for that. >> paul: john, what's the best thing in this? the best policy proposal in this document? >> all of obama's proposals, expanding government, are frozen in place and the attempt is made to reverse them. in other words, the horrible stimulus package, didn't create any jobs, obama care, the health care plan, which is below 40% approval rating, and

all of the other regulatory initiatives that have been job killers. >> right. >> rolled back. that's something the base of the republican party, the conservative movement can cheer. >> paul: isn't that just, kim, like the party of no accusation, that the democrats make about the republicans, that this is a party that just wants to stop everything, and doesn't have ideas of its own? >> it does have ideas of its own, but remember, i mean, most of the country wants to stop this right now. so, the republicans are on to something with this. they needed to do two things, here, which is actually to show at that they're not just the party of no that they have ideas and have some of the health care provisions there and some stuff on taxes and issues on government transparency, which is going to resonate a lot out there with the public. >> what are those, hold on, let's talk about that. one is 72 hour period before you vote on a final bill so everybody can actually read it as opposed to sticking it in front of members who have no idea what they're doing. what else is in the reform area here?

>> well, no, that's the big one and this is a deliberately and there has just been so much discussion out there of how, i mean, half of the members didn't read the health care bill, didn't read the stimulus bill. don't know what's in any of these things and it's a major issue with the tea parties, so that's going to probably help them a lot. >> there's one other great idea, the constitutionality of every piece of legislation, specifically reference giving it constitutionality has to be included and i heard of one member of congress to called up a legislative analyst on capitol hill and said can you find me the part of the constitution i have to cite or use in this bill and this is symbolic with important. >> paul: kim, where does this fall short? >> there's a couple of one, ear marks, the republicans, house republicans unilaterally disavowed them and that was a mark in their favor among a lot of vote,er, this as things rocked from the new pledge and i think they were hoping no one would notice, but i think they don't understand how symbolic this has become for a

lot of tea party voters in particular and independents so that's not good. also, not a lot on good tax policy and the problem there's a big focus in here on spending caps and reducing the deficit, but if you don't have policies out there growing the government, you're never really going to get out of this debt, i'm sorry, growing the economy. >> paul: growing the economy. >> sorry, growing the economy, you're never going to get out of the deficits. they don't have as much on that and have to work on it. >> paul: that's where they are going to fall short. >> they're in the new media age, we're talking ear marks and process reform, for an entire year, the american people watched and exchanged e-mail messages about it and know how congress works now and they don't like it. >> paul: the other big news this week, john, the democrats apparently decided to hold off the vote on the extending the bush tax cuts past the election and presumably do it on the lame duck which means

that if nothing happens, all of the bush tax cuts on the high earners, but also on everybody else will expire january 1st, smart politics or not. >> inexplicable coincompetence and gives the republicans ability to go out and say this party has controlled washington for two years, done nothing to extend the tax cuts that will expire and raise your taxes. >> democrats are presumably smart enough to know that's what the republicans will do. why not have the vote. >> they're panicking. >> paul: they're panicking, do they feel they'll lose the debate. >> they have a left wing that don't want them extended, moderates can't wait to get home and try to save themselves. every man and woman for himself is the mantra of the democratic caucus right now. >> oh, boy, when we come back, obama care and the mid term elections, with the first provisions of the health care

law kicking in this week and the president once again tries to sell it to the american people. but are they buying it or is the issue toxic or democrats as they head into the fall campaign stretch. i was driving in northern california. my son was asleep. i really didn't see it coming. i didn't realize i was drifting into the other lane. [ kim ] i was literally falling asleep at the wheel. it got my attention, telling me that i wasn't paying attention. i had no idea the guy in front of me had stopped short. but my car did. my car did. thankfully, my mercedes did. [ male announcer ] a world you can't predict... demands a car you can trust. the e-class. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial. ♪ through mercedes-benz financial. save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance?really was abe lincoln honest? mary: does this dress make my backside look big? abe: perhaps... save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance?really

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>> well, on some key provisions of obama care kicking in this week. the president renewed his effort to convince americans of the advantage of his health care overhaul. but just six weeks before the mid term elections, it's proving to be a tough sell. the plan has proved to be more of a liability than an asset for embattled democrats. a new poll showed 61% of likely voters favor appealing the law and opponents of obama care are seizing on that unpopularity with ads aimed at democrats who voted for the legislation. this one is funded by revere america, a group headed by former new york governor george pataki and targets new york congressman john hall.

. >> congressman hall voted for obama care, government run health care is a bad plan. bureaucrats will benefit, seniors will get hurt. costs will go up, care will go down. longer weights in doctor's offices, you're right to keep your own doctor may be taken away. it's a plan we didn't want and don't need, but hall voted for it anyway. defeat congressman hall. >> well, kim, that was subtle. [laughter] >> the democrats that remain-- have maintained radio silence about health care all summer, suddenly, they speak up. why get back into this debate now? >> well, the reason the president is jumping back in here is because things are looking so dismal, i think that there's a fear in the white house that if they don't go out there, someone doesn't go out there and start saying something nice about the health care bill, there's going to be, come january, not just republicans, but members of the president's own party, that are out there saying that the bill needs to be revealed

in some way, changed, elements of it killed and they're trying to make the kiss and get a little enthusiasm. >> stop the panic. >> dan, they wrote these so the benefits would kick in a few weeks before the election and the president said they could brag about it, what are the new provisions? >> well, free preventive health care. >> free? >> free. >> allegedly free. >> allegedly free, you know, a ban on lifetime spending caps and have to cover children up to the age of 26. all just basically was intended to punish the insurance industry and i think the effect is going to be very interesting because inevitably, premiums are going to rise to cover these things. they're going to cost money. >> paul: mandates cost money. >> right, and we just saw hhs secretary sebelius last week in this kind of speech which she punished the insurance industry, that's going to continue for the next six months.

>> paul: and many major insurers decided to drop their child's only coverage, which now covered about a million children with policies, that parents buy typically when their kids go off to school and are no longer covered about their parents' employer health care policy, they buy the supplemental coverage and they dropped them altogether than these mandates. >> i talked to someone who voted for obama care, but strong misgiving about it because he told colleagues back in march. if you vote for this what will prevent the insurance companies from adjusting premiums, it may wash away benefits from the new provisions and you know what, the people are watching what the insurance companies are doing, blaming them in part and also blaming the congress that passed this. >> paul: dan, the white house is, the hhs secretary, kathleen sebelius, blaming them for a misinformation campaign and threatening them. >> yeah, well, you know, we talked here, paul, as though this phrase, repeal and

replace is just afraid that this momentum is going to roll back obama care, it's not going to be that easy, this is the law. i think what the white house is doing is making sure that they've pushed back hard and make it difficult to overturn pieces of the law which are going to be expensive and cost money for a long time and don't expect them to walt in and-- >> that's what we're going to hear a suit from 23 attorneys generals against constitutionality and may drop obama care off the map constitutionally, if one piece is taken away the whole he hthi collapses. >> paul: what about one specific thing they'll repeal is the mandate on small businesses to report all transactions with any contractor above $600, which is a huge paper work burden. but other than that, i don't

see a lot of specific repeal planks in the new platform. >> no, i mean, they're bobbing along on the notion they're going to repeal this. that's highly unlikely and they're going to need to be more specific. one idea, too, percolating out there, is simply an idea to not fund it, not to give money to it and strangle it that way and then i know that a lot of republicans are that way in terms of their own replace ideas, things that republicans talked about before. allowing you to buy insurance policies along state lines and that's a whole coming and they've got to deal with the obama law first. >> paul: on the politics end. bill clinton promised democrats if they only voted for this bill it would become popular before the election. is he going have to offer a lot of the people jobs at his foundation? >> bill clinton led them down the garden path as did barack obama. this was perhaps the greatest political miscalculation in

the last 50 years, this thing is not selling and, yeah, he is going to have to offer them jobs. >> the line is going to be long. when we come back, the latest salvos in the battle over school reforms, the movement, get the boost as al gore's movie director sets his sights on the teachers union, but they have the schoo

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>> with a future of school reform in washington d.c. very much in the balance, that city's hard charging chancellor michelle reed met with a man who will decide her fate. democratic mayoral nominee, in the democratic primary last tuesday, thanks in large part to the support of the

teacher's union under reed's tenure more than 200 underperforming teachers have been fired and almost 20 failing schools, and teacher's pay tied to merit valuations and the face of education reform figures in a documentary called waiting for superman produced by david guggenheim, the academy award director of al gore's global warming documentary, "an inconvenient truth", takes a devastating look inside america's public school system. >> it's about 60,000 people have gone to the school and 40,000 didn't graduate. this is the damage that the school has done in this neighborhood. a child that doesn't finish high school will earn less than about eight times more likely to go to prison. for these kids the only chance for getting a great school depends whether their number is picked in a lottery. >> so they don't get it, is

there another chance. >> no. >> paul: wall street journal columnist, and jason join me with me. bill, you and i have been making the arguments over education reform for years. what is this significant? >> it's significant because it comes from a liberal. the gentleman in the trailer is locke high school, failed 40,000 of 60,000 students, the way erin brockovich would talk about a factory that's polluting the drinking water of the local community and shows himself driving past three public schools every morning to drop his kids off at a private school. you know, he said when he made his film on global warming, he was aiming to try to persuade the guy who drives the pickup not a prius. this is aimed at liberals and it's very powerful. >> paul: is this a major cultural turn in the argument, jason? this is the second such movie

we've talked about earlier this year. the lottery, focused on the harlem reform. is this a significant cultural term? >> i hope so and you think it has that potential to sway public opinion, but we know from covering education over the years you really need to get your hands dirty in terms of the politics and the public policy and the sad reality is that one of the stars of this movie, bill, is now fighting for her job. >> is fighting for her job, extraordinary. >> michelle reed and this is a woman appearing on oprah, on the cover of time magazine. >> paul: more than that, is achieving actual results on the ground in terms of actual helping kids. >> one of the celebrated reformers in the country is fighting for her job, because the teacher's unions spent a million dollars trying to fire her boss. >> and they won. >> they won. >> this is the they think about the teacher's union, they think they can wait you out and typically prevail. remember what they said about

the pope, how many divisions does the pope have. >> right. >> how many divisions has a movie director have? >> i think it's pretty strong, he's laboring likened making michelle reed out to turning the lights down during heart surgery and one thing we're waiting to hear from president obama on this with one word. if he said we need to keep the reforms, i don't think anybody would doubt-- >> has he spoken up. so far he's been silent. >> has his education secretary spoken up? >> he was silent when they took away the voucher thing. aen. >> there's a voucher program that's quite successful, that the democrats in congress have zeroed that out. >> right. >> and they have not opposed that act by the congress. >> so if there's silence on this, you know, he's intervened in a new york islamic center dispute. it'd be nice to intervene for kids in d.c. for which the federal government has some responsibility and i think this is where barack obama could use his influence in a very healthy way. we're waiting. >> there's another decision this week. mark zuckerberg, the facebook

billionaire decided to donate 100 million to new jersey schools and looks like new jersey governor chris christie might invite newark mayor, cory booker, a democrat, but a reformer to take charge of the newark schools. is that a big development? >> it's a big development not so much because of the money. because we all know that newark schools in particular-- >> are some of the worst in the world. >> some of the worst, but also per pupil, high already in the school and the nice thing about the donation, reportedly it will be conditioned or be targeted to certain reforms, the mayor of newark will be able to use it to expand charter schools and for teacher evaluation systems and so forth. so, it's money targeting reforms that we know can be effective. >> paul: are they going to change-- does it have the potential, bill, all of this momentum to change the way that democratic party thinks about education? because there have been the big protector of union

interests, not children's interests. >> exactly. if barack obama credits during the campaign, he did say some thing that got the teacher's unions very upset. let's say look, not that the problem that the school system is failing, the problem is the corrupt system is working for adults, it's working for the teachers unions, bureaucratic, teachers unions, bureaucratic, not for th hey, you guys. want to try activia's great new taste? isn't this the yogurt that, you know... helps regulate your digestive system. trust me. it is beyond tasty. mmm. this is really good! new best tasting activia ever! ♪ activia

while i was building my friendships... my family... while i was building my life... my high cholesterol was contributing to plaque buildup in my arteries. that's why my doctor prescribed crestor. she said plaque buildup in arteries... is a real reason to lower cholesterol... and that, along with diet, crestor does more than lower bad cholesterol... it raises good. crestor is also proven to slow the buildup of plaque in arteries. crestor isn't for everyone, like people with liver disease or women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. simple blood tests will check for liver problems.

you should tell your doctor about other medicines you are taking, or if you have muscle pain or weakness. that could be a sign of serious side effects. while you've been building your life, plaque may have been building in your arteries. ask your doctor if crestor can help and go to crestor.com to get a free trial offer. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. >> time now for hits and misses, bill. >> a hit from vietnam, richard was working in laos under attack by the vietnamese, seven americans made it off of the hill. three because of this guy, but because the operation was classified even his children didn't know of his heroism. we know that in war there are many unsung acts of heroism

and self-sacrifice, but good to see a good man get his due from a grateful nation. >> paul: jason. >> a miss for harvard says it will continue to ban rotc in campus until gays are allowed to serve openly in the million. and harvard is lobbying congress to let illegal immigrant students to gain status. ban military personnel from campus. >> paul: dan. >> a bill hit for whatever mysterious force in new york to say republican insuggestive carl paladino is within six points of democratic titan andrew cuomo followed by michael bloomberg endorsing mr. cuomo followed by eliot spitzer saying that cuomo is the dirtiest nastyiest out there, isn't politics wonderful? >> the storm coming across.